Common Topics

Alacritech owns intellectual property which includes support for Microsoft’s Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) Chimney architecture. This offloads TCP/IP processing to an Ethernet network interface card (TOE) and so relieves the host processor of the TCP/IP packet-level jobs.

Emulex' OneConnect is a single chip that provides 1 and 10 gigabit Ethernet, iSCSI plus TOE functionality, and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) capability via firmware. With the licensed Alacritech IP it can provide TCP Chimney offload support for customers using Windows-based servers.

Despite its lack of publicly-announced FCoE certifications by server suppliers, the Verari FCoE endorsement having been nullified by Verari's collapse, the OneConnect chip has garnered many Ethernet NIC endorsements. As a single chip embracing Ethernet NIC, iSCSI, TOE and FCOE, with RDMA support a future possibility, it looks set to have a good future.

A cloud on Emulex's horizon is that Ethernet product supplier Broadcom, which tried to take over Emulex earlier this year but failed, has just announced its own FCoE product, adding to the competitive pressure already coming from QLogic and Brocade. ®